


Moon and Sand

by thepointoftheneedle



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coma, Depression, F/M, Fluff, Smut, Suicidal Thoughts, Supernatural Elements, not as much of a downer as these tags make it sound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:20:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24214321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepointoftheneedle/pseuds/thepointoftheneedle
Summary: Jughead is surviving with depression, but just barely.  Betty has problems that she can't explain.  She's the housekeeper at the lonely house he rents but there's something strange about her, not least her obsession with the pop princesses of the noughties.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 65
Kudos: 138
Collections: 7th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	Moon and Sand

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from "Moon and Sand" by The Mountain Goats  
> Here's a bit of the lyric:  
> Deep is the midnight sea  
> Warm is the fragrant night  
> Sweet are your lips to me  
> Soft as the moon and sand  
> Oh, when shall we meet again?  
> When the night has left us, will the spell remain?  
> Jug has been reading Sylvia Plath and he refers to the poem "Suicide Off Egg Rock" which is a wonderful poem, just not one he should be reading when he's pretty fragile. I commend it to you if you are up for a heavy dose of empathy with people who are struggling with their mental health.

So, she’d go once more through the to do list before getting to the office. Christ, could this guy walk any slower? Fuckweasel. She had to keep reminding herself to prioritise or something was going to slip. Lots to do before the two weeks of quiet she’d booked in Massachusetts. She needed to reinterview three of the subjects so she’d have to call them and set that up before the end of the day. Crosswalk, wait for the green man. There was the conference in Stockholm, keynote speaker, Dr Elizabeth Cooper, if you please, so she needed to book the tickets. Her passport! Where the hell was her passport? Green. Finally. It could be at her mother’s or 

She didn’t even see the cab. 

_________________________________________

He wasn’t sure if this was the dumbest or the smartest thing he could be doing. He knew he wasn’t well. Obviously. Getting out of bed had been impossible most days for a long time. The thought of all the fucking things he’d have to do after he put a foot on the floor was overwhelming and he just couldn’t. The idea of putting toothpaste on the brush was too much, so fuck getting showered and dressed and …well just fuck all of it. So he’d roll over and go back to sleep and that’d be another day on the calendar, reproaching him with being such a pussy that he couldn’t achieve even the tiniest thing. Finally Archie called FP so things had to be pretty goddamn desperate. 

FP had taken him to a doctor. Christ knows how he got a name or a referral but Jug slouched in a chair, chin resting on his chest, after his dad had pretty much dressed him and driven him there. He’d refused to admit himself to hospital, mulishly saying “No” and then staying silent. The doctor had given him a prescription. She said that she didn’t want to force him into treatment but that if he didn’t try to engage with some kind of regimen that there would be no alternative. The pills wouldn’t work right away but after a few weeks he might be in a position to start to make some therapeutic decisions. Until then she said she wanted to talk to his dad about keeping him safe if he wasn’t going to be in a facility. Jug almost considered smiling. If he had been able to summon the energy he would have killed himself weeks ago. He simply couldn’t be bothered now. 

Eventually the pills did start to work. He was able to get out of bed pretty much every day, even knowing the futility of it. He told FP that he thought he might be able to write his way out of it. Poor FP had no clue what he was enduring and wanted to believe that it could be over as easily as that. He had his own demons, sure, but Jug thought that the kind of depression that he struggled with required levels of introspection that the Serpent King simply couldn’t find in himself. Jug wasn’t well, “well” wasn’t even visible on the horizon. He was thinking that maybe he’d kill himself. It was an idea that he had enough concentration to consider with a detached, objective interest thanks to the pills. He’d want to be sure that no-one he loved had to clean up the mess, that he wouldn’t screw up Archie’s life or FP’s or god forbid Jellybean’s, make any of them as broken as him. Jug thought that maybe he was suffering from a kind of rejection like a transplant patient. He wasn’t the sick patient in his analogy though, he was the imposter organ, he was being rejected. If he didn’t get out he’d poison the whole system. At the same time he’d also come to think maybe he actually could write his way out. Perhaps he could craft the twenty-first century version of “The Crack Up” about how everyone is so close that they can’t see each other anymore, that the desire to provoke feeling all the time means we’re so jaded that no-one feels anything, that no-one even remembers how to feel, about how everything is broken and empty and void and meaningless. 

But it was true that he was getting a little better. He’d managed to power up the laptop for the first time in weeks and he used his energy to search for somewhere he could just be, while he decided whether to be or not to be. The doctor probably wouldn’t have been happy to learn that he’d been reading Plath but it had given him an idea. The New England coast, “Suicide Off Egg Rock”, “the forgetful surf creaming on those ledges.” The idea of standing on one of those beaches and then simply stepping out into oblivion, leaving no trace behind, appealed to him. It didn’t take long to find it. There was a solitary house on a tiny island off Salem, Mass. He actually had a wry smile on his face reading that it was part of a group called Misery Islands. Access by boat. No facilities. Available right away. He didn’t bother to look at the photographs. He didn’t care what it looked like. He still had money from two successful books so he paid for two months and got an email back from the property manager almost instantly.

_Re: Bear Island House_

__

__

_Dear Mr Jones_

_Thanks for the payment for the rental of the Bear Island House from March 1st through April 30th. The property is accessible only by boat. If you are not bringing your own craft I can arrange transport for you from Marblehead. You should be aware that you will need to provide provisions for your stay since there are no facilities of any kind on the island. I will arrange for maid services before your arrival and I can ask the service person to be available during your stay for an additional fee. Please let me know your requirements._

_Declan Sullivan  
Realtor_

Jughead replied saying he would need transport. He was exhausted by the effort and closed his laptop and went back to bed. 

There were arguments that he still felt too slow and stupid to have. Archie was sure that being alone in the back end of beyond was no good. He’d been there and it’d almost finished him. When he heard the name of the island he tried to convince Jug that it was a bad omen. FP, on the other hand, wanted to believe that his boy had this, that he was recovering, so Jug worked on him. “I’m really feeling better. The magic pills are working. I’m optimistic about what I’m working on. I’ve spoken to Roger at the publishers. They just need to see a couple of chapters and then maybe I’ll be back on track, advances and all that jazz.” He tried to speak faster than the slow drawl that he was aware he’d been using as he told his lies. He actually smiled. It felt like someone else was working his face from the outside but it was enough to convince FP. Archie wasn’t buying it. “Look Arch, I’ll call everyday. If I start feeling bad again I’ll have you come get me. I just want to get some space to write. The city’s too much right now.”

Three days later he was on a train from Penn Station to Boston. It felt unreal, like he was watching himself on TV. The journey happened to him, he didn’t seem to have any agency, he drifted from train station to Uber to Sullivan’s office in Marblehead to a boat piloted by a taciturn old guy in a cap and a heavy sweater like an illustration of an old timey fisherman. Fragments of his interaction with Sullivan had caught in some kind of mental filter, “It’s just an old house and people say stuff about old houses,” “You’re a sophisticated guy, you won’t be spooked by the wind in the trees like some nervous Nelly,” “absolutely no facilities,” “If you need transport just call Ben and he’ll come get you, except at night. Old guys…asleep at eight and then up at four. You know how they are.”

Now on a boat with the cold wind in his face he began to engage with his surroundings. “So, Ben is it? How do I get in touch if I need a ride to the mainland?” he asked his Charon. 

“Call me, number’s on the side there. Not after dark. If’n I don’t pick up I’ll just be out with my daughter so try again in an hour or so.” Relying on Ben’s empty social calendar and landline seemed fine to Jug. There was literally nowhere for him to be. He put the number into his phone and waited in silence to dock on the island.

When they landed Ben threw his kitbag onto the jetty. Jug was glad he hadn’t loaded it with electronics and fine china. His laptop was in his messenger bag and the kitbag just had a random selection of clothes, most of them unlaundered, and the contents of one of the kitchen cabinets that he’d swept in heedlessly with an outstretched arm. Given what he and Arch normally ate there would be pop tarts and ramen so he wouldn’t starve unless he wanted to. He dragged himself off the boat and in the direction that Ben pointed, towards his new home.

It was five in the afternoon and the sky was beginning to deepen to indigo. Following the cinder path he rounded a stand of pine trees, the smell of resin strong in his nostrils. There was the house. It could have been the American Gothic place from the painting although fortunately there wasn’t a hatchet faced dude with a pitchfork outside with his creepy daughter. It was a white painted, wood framed building. The roof was steeply pitched and the bargeboards ornately cut. There were large bay windows and a porch wrapped around the outside like a winding cloth. He couldn’t see a door so he must be approaching from the side. He set off around the building, imagining that he could hear music. 

As he rounded the house, stepping into the chill cast by its shadow he stopped in his tracks. Here on his empty island there was a clothesline and there was a girl, singing as she gathered in laundry. A girl in blue jeans and a white blouse, her blonde hair swinging in a high ponytail. She must have heard his footsteps or felt his startled gaze burning into her flesh because she whirled around, almost dropping the sheet she was holding. “Oh Mr Jones. You gave me a start.” she smiled nervously. “I was hoping you’d be here before dark. People don’t come out to Bear at night. You’d have been stuck in Marblehead or Manchester. You must be tired after your trip. Let me get your bag.”

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded. He had wanted solitude. Now there was some singing woman imposing herself on his exile. Well she would have to call Ben and get off his property right now.

She recoiled shocked at his tone. “I’m…I’m Betty. I’m here to keep house for you. Cooking and cleaning and such. Is that not right?” She looked as if he had slapped her, shocked, hurt, maybe even a little frightened. She was a girl alone on an island with a yelling man and no obvious means of escape. He felt bad for her for a moment and couldn’t remember the last time he had felt anything at all for another person but he simply couldn’t tolerate her being here a moment longer than was necessary. Her presence was painful to him.

“Right well that’s not going to fly. Look, there’s obviously been a misunderstanding or something. I don’t need anyone to look after me. I’m here for some peace and quiet. If we call Ben he can pick you up and take you right home. Sorry to be rude.” She still looked devastated.

“No-one’s going to come now. Your boatman won’t make it in daylight and they’re superstitious about coming at night.” She couldn’t miss his hostile expression. “I’ll just stay in the kitchen as soon as I’ve put away the laundry and I’ll be gone in the morning. You won’t know I’m here. I’ll be quiet as the grave.”

“Fine.” He could keep to his room until tomorrow and then she’d be gone and he would be alone. At last.

“I’ve prepared a meal. When would you like to eat?” He didn’t know how much longer he could hold things together. He’d been pretty belligerent towards her and now she was trying to offer him food. He felt tears begin to prick behind his eyelids. God, let him not cry in front of this woman like a mental case.

“No, that’s not necessary. Thank you. It’s been a long day. I’m sorry.” He grabbed the kitbag and jogged into the house, up the stairs and into the first bedroom he found. He closed the door and threw himself onto the bed, registering vaguely that it was soft and warm and smelled clean. White linens, freshly laundered and ironed like these had never been part of his existence. If he could just sleep for a while he wouldn’t have to deal with any of this.

He woke to find the room in darkness. He could hear the sea lapping against the shore through the open window, calming him. He was hungry and there was the smell of something savoury in the air that was making his mouth water. It was an unfamiliar sensation. The loss of his appetite had been the thing that first alerted him to his decline when his usual melancholy became a maelstrom that dragged him under almost seven months earlier. At first he didn’t want to eat and then he couldn’t. Nothing could interest him, not even when softhearted Archie travelled half way across the city to bring back burgers from his favourite diner. Eventually he would only eat instant oatmeal when he began to feel faint, the thought of anything else making him nauseous. As the pills began to take effect he found he could tolerate cereal or ramen but now he was ravenous for whatever it was that he could smell, something substantial and nourishing. He grabbed the kitbag and turned on the light. Tipping the contents onto the bed he found a couple of battered packages of cereal, a container of hot sauce, noodles and some broken crackers. It was not an inspiring haul. Then he heard footsteps on the stairs. There was a clinking sound outside the door and a soft knock.

“Mr Jones. I’ve fixed you a tray in case you get hungry. I hope you feel better.” Her voice was soft but the silence in the house meant that he could hear every word almost as if she was speaking into his ear. Clearly she had observed that he was unwell. He hoped that she wasn’t pitying him. That was too pathetic. When he heard her footsteps moving away he opened the door a little. She might be an angel, he thought, half seriously. A slice of chicken pot pie, roasted broccoli, baked potato. On a separate plate a brownie with a handful of fresh raspberries. A glass of milk, cloth napkin and silverware. His heart seemed to swell in his chest when he saw that she had put three tiny yellow flowers in a bud vase on the tray. It was such a simple human gesture of kindness when he had been nothing but unkind. She was a welcoming presence and he was trying to cast her out. He brought the tray into his room and devoured the food like a starving man which in a way, he guessed, he was. Half an hour later he picked up the tray and gathered the tattered shreds of his character around himself and headed downstairs. He didn't see her at first but then there she was, sitting in an armchair in a corner of the kitchen reading and he wondered how he’d missed her. She seemed almost part of the house. She closed the book, keeping her place with her finger, when she saw him and smiled tentatively.

“Oh that’s good, you ate something. Things always seem a little better on a full stomach. It’s good to be able to eat.”

“It was so delicious. Thank you…Betty?” She smiled again to confirm that he had her name right . “Look, I’m really sorry. I was pretty terrible. I’ve not been…well… and the travelling and everything…”

“I could see that. Really there’s no need to explain. People always have a reason for how they act. They’re just trying to do their best. ” Her expression was hard to read. He couldn’t tell if that was because he’d been inside his own head for so long that he was unable to find any empathy or because it was just a complicated expression. It seemed resigned, maybe anxious too. He suddenly had the horrifying thought that perhaps she had nowhere else to go when she left this house. He knew exactly what that felt like. “Look about leaving. There’s no need for you to rush off if it’s inconvenient. Do you need a couple of days or something?”

“Well, that would help actually. If you’re sure. I’m actually not sure if I can...I just need to work out…” He suddenly knew, with some certainty, that she was completely adrift and that he had closed off the only safe harbour available to her. What horror was he sending her back to? An abusive husband, fundamentalist parents, cults, gangsters? He was such an idiot. He was acting like the fact that he could afford this big ass house for just himself meant that he could condemn her to god knows what kind of displaced existence just so he could sulk here alone. His own entitlement took his breath away.

“Actually, you know what? That meal was so great and I’m really not much of a housekeeper. If you’d agree to stay you’d be helping me out. I’m sorry I was a douche.”

She grinned at him and the relief on her face was palpable. “You were a little douche-y.”

“I’m a jerk, a jackass, a dickweed, an asshole. Feel free to join in or stop me.” 

“I wouldn’t dream of calling you names. Not when you’re doing such a bang up job. What time would you like breakfast?”

“Oh I’ll just fix myself some coffee and cereal. Don’t bother cooking. Well I’ll turn in. Night Betty.”

“Night Mr Jones, sleep well.” she looked back at her book waiting until he was half way to the stairs before he heard her clear melodic voice. “Wankpuffin,” she said, “If you were stuck for any other names wankpuffin’s a good one. Or shitgibbon.”

He laughed as he climbed the staircase and realised that he had almost forgotten how. When he turned to look back at her he saw the kitchen was already in darkness. She must have decided to go to bed too. 

He woke to an aroma that was familiar and yet he couldn’t exactly place it, pancakes? Heading downstairs in sweatpants and a tank top with his arms full of the meagre provisions that had been stowed in his kitbag he heard a feminine grunt and some soft cursing which travelled straight to his dick; apparently something was alive down there. He’d given it up for dead months ago. He’d imagined his libido as a mortally wounded comrade. “I’m done for Captain. You’ll have to go on without me.” He found Betty at the stove making waffles. He had seen waffles made before. You opened the package and put them in the toaster. That was not how Betty rolled. She had her sleeves rolled up and was wrangling a huge cast iron waffle iron over the flame of the stove. It was clearly enormously heavy and she was straining to flip it over. A gentleman would have helped but she was taking the strain down her back and into her buttocks and he was transfixed as her muscles tightened under her shirt and jeans with the effort. Finally she got the thing flipped and turned to see him standing in the doorway. He dumped his cargo of noodles and crackers and dived for a seat at the counter so she wouldn’t see that he was half hard at the sight of a beautiful girl making him breakfast. She raised an eyebrow in his direction. “Not so keen on just cereal now then?”

“Waffles would be good too.” He realised that he was smiling and that it wasn’t even an effort. 

She surveyed his groceries with an appraising eye. “Well you seem fully stocked with regard to hot sauce, crackers and cereal. Thank god for the sriracha or you’d have to have the Froot Loops and Cap’n Crunch dry. But I see now how you’ve totally got this and don’t need anyone’s help.”

“I’m sorry I was a…”

“Dickbadger.”

“Of course, a dickbadger.”

She poured him some coffee. “Milk and sugar?”

“Black, thanks.”

He ate waffles with gallons of syrup and alarming quantities of butter while she leaned against the counter watching him. “So what do you have planned for your day?” He didn’t want to admit that his plan was to assess whether he could countenance continuing with his life so he fabricated. 

“Well I’m a writer. So I guess I’ll write.” She grinned at him encouragingly. 

“There’s a room at the front with a pretty view over the water. There’s a fire laid in there if you’d like me to light it. It’s probably still a little chilly in the mornings at the moment.” She was right. The house did seem to repel heat, especially the kitchen which should have been warmed by the stove. So by ten in the morning, showered and dressed, he found himself sitting at a desk in a warm, bright room like a functioning human being. Of course he had nothing to write. He wasn’t sure if being blocked was a symptom of his depression or a cause but it had felt insurmountable. 

He could hear Betty singing somewhere in the house, little snatches of melody that he couldn’t reconcile into a song but that still felt comforting. He wondered about her. Why was a bright, attractive girl like her keeping house for him on this island, miles from anywhere? And with that his fingers were on the keys and he was writing her story, his noir inflected tale of a good hearted, resourceful girl in a tight spot. He looked up a couple of hours later to see a sandwich and a glass of milk on a low table next to him; somehow she’d got in and out without him even seeing her. By five o clock he had three thousand words and a very rough outline. He hadn’t been so productive since the first book. And he felt pretty damn good, lighter somehow. He wandered into the kitchen, looking for some company, looking for her. She was nowhere to be seen. He went up to his room to find all the clothes he had brought with him laundered, ironed and folded into drawers. His bed was made and there were more of the tiny yellow flowers in a vase on the nightstand. He felt her care like an embrace. No-one had looked after him like this since his mother abandoned him to FP’s tender mercies when he was eleven years old and he noticed every detail of this unexpectedly nurturing presence. 

He grabbed his jacket against the chill and went out to walk along the shore line that he had been observing all day from the window of the writing room. It was strange to miss someone he barely knew and to have the strangest sense that, even when she wasn’t there, she was somehow just out of sight, present but unseen. He walked as the sun set over the ocean, the clouds parting to give glimpses of the vermillion and magenta of a burning sky like slashes through a cloth of blue velvet. Ripples shattered the reflections into shards of cobalt and royal blue. He took out his phone and snapped a picture, texting it to Archie with the message “Been writing all day. Doing good bro.” Heading back to the house he found he was relieved to hear her voice from the kitchen, singing along to the radio now. “It’s a love story baby just say yes.”

“Big Taytay fan huh?’ he said, leaning against the kitchen doorjamb.

“Hey don’t be a jizztrumpet. It was the song at my junior prom. You never escape those tracks do you? What was yours?”

“God, no idea. Didn’t go.”

“Senior prom then?”

“Same. My high school experience was…unconventional.”

She raised an inquisitive eyebrow and he found that he wanted to keep her attention. So he told her. He told her about his dad’s drinking, about being homeless through junior year, about the Serpents, about FP’s incarceration and being taken in by Archie and Fred. He told her how that family had saved him, extracted him from the gang with only a juvie record, encouraged him to get a scholarship to NYU, helped his dad rehabilitate when he got released. He stopped before he got to what had happened to Fred. He couldn’t find those words, not even to hold her interest. “And now you’re a writer? Published?” He nodded. “Wow, I’d like to read your work. I’m pretty voracious.” That got him excited again even though he knew she meant as a reader. He knew that. Good god, now little Juggie had woken up he seemed to be pretty keen to make friends. 

“I’ll email my publisher, get them to send you some comps.”  
“Well, maybe when you go into town. No wifi out here. No phone line. You can only get a cellphone signal out by the shoreline, and even then it’s unreliable. It’s not solid enough to tether a laptop to.” He imagined that a lot of people would be distressed by that news. It would make JB explode with anxiety for sure but he actually found it relaxing. An enforced detox from the noise was not unwelcome at all.

“Doesn’t that bother you?” he asked.

“No one’s waiting for my TikToks. They’d be even creepier than most. No, I’m better staying off grid.” He didn’t follow but then he wasn’t all that sure what TikTok was so maybe that was the problem.

“So apart from “Love Story” at the junior prom what’s your deal? Have you always done this kind of work?” He felt like he’d shared enough in good faith to warrant an exchange of biographies but clearly he’d been wrong. Her face fell and she looked anxious. 

“Not always. I did something else before.”

“Before?” He knew he was pushing at a closed door but he seemed unable to stop himself.

“There was an accident. I was in an accident. I’m sorry Mr Jones, do you mind if we don’t talk about that?” She seemed distressed and confused and for the first time he had the sense that there was something that he was missing about her, some sort of absence. Perhaps she had a hidden disability? Something wrong with her just as something was wrong with him.

“No, of course. I’m sorry to pry. And… would you mind calling me Jughead? The Mr Jones thing just seems weird. Or you can stick with jizztrumpet if you like.”

She smiled, “Because Jughead seems so boringly quotidian,” and turned to busy herself with preparations for dinner. He ate an epic pot roast followed by apple pie a la mode while she watched him. When he asked her why she wasn’t joining him she told him she had a special diet and he assumed it had something to do with her accident and so he didn’t push it beyond telling her that he was sorry that she couldn’t enjoy the meal she had prepared.

He’d had a good day; by recent standards it had been a great day, a magnificent day. So it made no sense that, when he opened his eyes the next morning, the old enemy was back, and in force. Maybe it had sensed that his reinforcements had arrived in the shape of a pretty girl with a blonde ponytail and dubious taste in music so it had renewed its assault. In any case it was kicking his ass again. He couldn’t get up. He rolled over and faced the wall. If he’d had a white flag he’d have waved it. He couldn’t do this again. He smelled bacon but couldn’t rouse himself for it. It made him feel queasy. In the middle of the morning there was a light knock at the door which he ignored. Half an hour later she knocked again, a little more forcefully. “Mr Jones, Jughead. I’m coming in now. I need to see you’re OK.”

He didn’t have the energy to stop her so in she came. She looked at him, huddled, foetal under the comforter and sighed. “Bad one today huh? What do you take? SSRIs? In the dresser? OK. Let’s get you some water and you can get those down.” She found his pills and helped him sit up to swallow them with a mouthful of water. “OK, I’m going to get you some coffee because you don’t want caffeine withdrawal on top of this.” She made an all encompassing gesture with her hand. “And that’s a pretty heavy caffeine habit you’ve got going on you know. We’ll address that another day.”

The coffee did actually help a little. “How did you know? About the pills.” he asked.

“I’ve got some experience. From before, my old life, my actual life. So, you don’t have to do anything but I’ll look in on you when I’m about. If you can get up there’s a TV and VCR in the back sitting room with some godawful movies. There’s no reception here really. Or just sleep. That’s fine too, sometimes you just need to switch off the grey matter and let it rest. I’ll see if you want some lunch later.” She put her hand over his where it lay on the comforter and he was so moved that the tears began to fall. “That’s good. You can let it hurt. Hurting won’t kill you. There’s no need to close it down. You’re still you, whatever you feel. It’s all OK.” 

When he looked back months later, after she left him alone on that island without a word, he couldn’t tell when he’d fallen in love with her but maybe it was then, as she sat on the bed and held his hand and told him it was OK to not be OK. Other people had told him that, of course, but in that room, on that day, the right person said it and he heard it. He didn’t know how long she had sat there on the edge of the bed but he woke to find that he’d slept all day. The sun was starting to set over the water again and his head felt a little clearer. He got up and pulled on the uniform of the depressed, sweatpants and an old Riverdale High Athletics dept hoodie that he’d snagged from Archie when buttons had been too much of an undertaking. He wandered the house like an unquiet spirit, searching for her. Again she was nowhere to be found and he wondered where she went at sunset. He showered and even managed to brush his teeth and then he heard her singing in the kitchen as usual. Katy Perry this time. It was a shame that she was so pretty and yet so misguided about music. “Aha, welcome to the land of the living,” she said and then looked momentarily confused and sad. “Can you eat? I have chicken soup and homemade bread if you can face it.” He found that he could.

He had good days and bad days but everyday there was her home cooking and her rolodex of pop acts of the noughties. He’d hear “Single Ladies” and get up from his desk for lunch or “Toxic” and know that dinner was about to be served. He teased her and she said that these were the songs that played in her head all the time. Then he sympathised with her and told her that he’d rather have clinical depression. “A joke! A Jughead Jones joke! It’s dark, it’s self deprecating, so on brand.” She grinned at him and he felt like she actually knew who he was and that it was OK to be that guy. He hadn’t felt that for a long time. He told her about his college life and writing the first books, about living in Queens with Archie. She didn’t respond with her own stories but he got the sense that she knew the city from the way that she understood his references. Sometimes she was nowhere to be found and he didn’t understand where she went. When he asked her she just said she’d gone out for some fresh air or that she must have been in the yard or upstairs, but she wasn’t because he’d looked. If he pushed it she got that same sad, confused look and he didn’t like that so he left it alone. In addition to the food and the company he was writing. He wasn’t sure if it was worth anything but it felt good to be creating again. 

One evening she asked him if he was up to a trip into Marblehead for supplies. He wanted her to come but she demurred. “It’s not easy for me to leave the island. My accident…” and he didn’t understand but he would accept anything about her by that stage. 

He called Ben and took his list like an obedient husband and toured the grocery store feeling oddly out of place after a few weeks of isolation. He bought her flowers, choosing yellow tulips in honour of the flowers she had left for him when he first arrived. On the trip back Ben looked askance at the flowers and he explained, “For the housekeeper. I thought she might like them,” and Ben looked like he was going to say something but then just stared straight ahead and steered to the jetty. As he got off the boat Ben called after him, “It’s no good to be alone out here. You oughta get some company,” and was gone. He thought it was a strange thing to say. He’d told him there was a housekeeper and surely Ben had brought her out here anyway. Weird old coot. And she was delighted with the flowers.

He had taken advantage of the free wifi in a coffee shop on the mainland to email his chapters to Roger at the publishers. The morning after the shopping trip when he went down to the shore he found he had a missed call. He returned it and Roger told him he’d stayed up late reading and he wanted more. They’d be prepared to give him a substantial advance for the book. “But are you well enough Jughead? I don’t want to put you under pressure.” Jug said he felt better than he had in months and they worked out a rough schedule for the delivery of the manuscript. He went through to the kitchen where he could hear her belting out “Hey! Hey! You You! I know that you like me No way! No way! You know it's not a secret Hey! Hey! You! You! I wanna be your girlfriend.”

“You know this isn’t Avril right?” He teased. “This is after she was replaced by the lizard person doppelgänger.”

“I’m not holding that against her. We all have our quirks. Hers is being a lizard creature infiltrating the world of Canadian pop music. She’d think I was weird. And she’d know that you’re a cockblanket.”

“Thanks for that. My publisher’s going to commission the book. I just heard.” She flew at him and put her arms around his neck. 

“Oh that’s so great. Well done Jug.” His arms were round her waist and as she pulled back from the hug she must have seen what was in his eyes. Whatever she had intended when she put her arms around him, it had ignited the desire that had been simmering in him and he couldn’t hide it anymore. He held onto her and she relaxed back into his arms, cool and smooth against his chest. 

“Betty, I don’t want to overstep here. I really like you but just say the word and I’ll never mention it again. It’s totally your call.”

She looked up at him and he thought that he could see her wrestling with something. “There are things I can’t tell you Jug, that I can’t explain. I feel the same as you but this can’t lead anywhere, I mean it can’t carry on when you leave Bear Island. Do you still want me on those terms?” He answered her by leaning in and placing his lips softly on hers. 

Being with her was different to other girls he’d slept with. She seemed to need him more, to want to make herself part of him. When he kissed her she sucked on his lip, on his tongue, consuming him. She actually seemed to want to go down on him rather than treating it like a special favour when he’d done something right, like his girlfriends had done in the past. Sometimes she’d just come into his room in the morning and climb on top of him and take him in her mouth, not wanting him to get her off at all. He wasn’t going to complain about that kink if that was what it was. She’d murmur against his belly, kissing down to his cock and then lick along his length until he was going crazy, twining his fingers through her hair, fighting against the urge to push her mouth onto himself. Her moaning against him as she put her lips around him, like she was turned on to be sucking him, was simply the most erotic thing he could imagine and he was pretty sure he would never want another girl after her. Then after dinner he’d wash pots while she dried and then he’d lift her onto the kitchen counter, pulling down her jeans and opening her knees, bringing her off on his fingers, putting his mouth on her until she screamed. Sometimes she’d lean over the counter, looking back at him impudently and he’d thrust into her from behind, his hands over her breasts, yelling as he came and then, immediately wanting her again. Other times she’d let him carry her upstairs to his room where he’d whisper to her how beautiful she was and slide inside her so slowly and tenderly that it made his heart feel sore with how much he cared for her. She’d never sleep in his bed. She said that she didn’t sleep well because of her accident and that she’d keep him awake. He said he’d like to be kept awake by her but it made no difference. He loved her but he knew somehow that if he confessed that, it would end everything so he guarded his words and, when he felt them forming as he made love to her, he bit his lip and held them in.

He rang Sullivan and extended his lease until July. At the rate he was working he could have a draft finished by then. He rang or texted Archie every day and his friend remarked that he’d been wrong and that the island life had worked the miracle that had been needed. Jug wanted to tell him about Betty but he couldn’t explain who she was or what was going on because he didn’t know so it seemed better to leave it unsaid. 

The late spring turned into summer. The days were long and her cool, perfect skin was always salty from swimming and sea spray. He wrote in front of an open window, surf crashing on the shore all day like a pulse, sand warm under his bare feet when he took a break to wrangle a plot point. It was like a dream of summer but he began to fear what would happen when the book was finished and the lease expired. He could extend it but that couldn’t go on forever. His resources weren’t unlimited. He felt adrift not knowing her story. He didn’t know where she was from except that she seemed familiar with NYC, he didn’t know anything about the accident or her condition, whether it was life threatening, if she needed medical treatment, he didn’t even know her last name. Her inability to trust him with any of this hurt, made him feel, despite her nurturing, that she didn’t care for him as he cared for her. There were more bad days and she knew why. On one of those days, as he sat outside on the beach, staring out to sea, she came and crouched beside him, taking his hand and looking at him with large, clear, green eyes that matched the ocean. “Jug, I know that I’m hurting you. I never meant to. I wish I could tell you what’s going on but I honestly don’t really know myself. And what I think I know is unbelievable, just completely absurd. I wish you could trust me, just trust what you know that I feel for you. I can’t see what the future will bring but can’t we just have this moment?”

“I can extend the lease for a couple of months Betts but then I’m out of cash until the revenue from the new book comes in. I can’t afford this house forever. And you can’t or won’t leave and you can’t or won’t tell me why. I don’t know how to reconcile that. I care about you and I don’t even know your name. What if the new tenants don’t need a housekeeper? Where will you go?”

Her eyes were full of tears. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s my choice, not really. I think I might have to move on whether I want to or not but I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t be able to come with me. I think it’s a trip I have to take on my own. And my name is Cooper. I’m Betty Cooper.”

They sat outside on the beach late into the evening, the sky burning with the sunset. It painted her skin in orange and crimson and he traced the colours with his fingertips. She sighed and her breath echoed the waves on the shingle. He pulled her to sit between his thighs and she leaned back against his chest, his mouth in her hair, breathing its salty sweetness. He pulled her t shirt over her head, her breasts bare underneath it. To stroke her and have her tremble against him was all he could want in the world, to have had a moment so perfect redeemed the pain. He’d pay it again gladly for this. He reached down and unbuttoned her shorts and she stood in front of him to push them off her hips, stepping out of them and letting him look at her, naked as the last of the golden light faded from the sky. He stood and threw off his clothes and held her against him, fitted to him as if they had been carved from the same block of stone, now reunified. He ran his hands over her sides, heart thumping with love and desire and then he dropped to his knees before her to put his mouth on her and make her cry out in the moonlight with his fingers inside her and his tongue on her. As she shuddered to her climax she collapsed next to him on the sand shaking and giggling. “You have a great many talents, but that’s my favourite one.” He grabbed her and kissed her, impossibly turned on that his mouth was still wet with her as he pushed his tongue into her mouth. He bit her bottom lip, trying to convey how much he wanted her and she shoved his shoulders back against the sand and hitched her leg over him. She waited a long, agonising, delicious moment before sinking onto him and he realised that he had been whimpering. As she moved on him he heard her moan “oh my love,”and his heart almost exploded. He held her hips and thrust upwards into her, desperate to show her how she moved him, how he loved her. He put his hands on her breasts, silvered with the moonlight, dusted with the sand, rubbing the coarseness against her nipples, making her hiss and keen. And then she was flickering and fluttering as she came so he rolled them both over so he could chase her to his orgasm, thrusting as the waves crashed, cursing softly, shuddering and unable to hold it in muttering, “I love you, always, always, always.”

After that there were more and more occasions where he looked for her but she was nowhere to be found and then, as if nothing had happened, she was there in the kitchen singing “Party in the USA”, unable to account for where she had been. One day she was gone when he woke up and didn’t reappear, disorientated, until dinner time. “You need a doctor Betts. We have to get you to a neurologist or a psychiatrist.” 

“Well aren’t you a fine one to talk?” she snarked back.

“I will if you will.” If that would work he’d see as many shrinks as she wanted. They discussed it half heartedly over the next few days and when he went into town to send the final draft of the manuscript he researched facilities in Boston that might help her. When he came back she was gone. No note.

There were some very bad days but being with her had made him stronger. She’d helped him to see that the bad days didn’t diminish him as a person. He sat on the shore and looked out to sea and found he had no desire to step into the water and never step out. He wanted to live, to see the book published, to eat burgers with Archie, to be at JB’s graduation. He’d hoped that she might come back but her things were gone and he knew he needed to face reality. A few days before his lease expired, he packed up, called Ben and went home, sad but whole.

In December the book was published and became a pretty big hit. He wanted to tell her. He wanted her to know that he forgave her for abandoning him. He didn’t understand but he knew that she was doing her best. He was also concerned that she was sick and needed help, maybe even needed money that he could give her. He simply didn’t know how to track her down. Many times he googled “Elizabeth Cooper accident,” knowing it was futile. The search threw up thousands of results but nothing obviously relevant. He’d thought that she might be a New Yorker so he began to centre his search on the five boroughs. One day he was on the New York Times website looking at their coverage of traffic accidents in the city. He found what looked like a lead and got excited that he was on her trail. There was an article titled “6 Pedestrians in 3 Days: A Deadly Spate of Crashes in N.Y.C.” The article described a shocking number of fatalities on the streets of the city; bad weather, poor visibility, badly maintained vehicles all contributing to the carnage. At the very end of the article another casualty was mentioned. A young woman had been knocked over on a crosswalk by a cab driver who had ignored the red light. She had just received her doctorate in psychology and was on the brink of a brilliant career. She had been in a coma at the time the article was written and the reporter’s tone suggested that she would not live. He checked the date of the story. It was from February, a matter of weeks before he had moved out to Bear Island and his heart sank. It must be a different Betty Cooper. Jug knew it was impossible for a young woman in a coma to recover enough to be making him waffles three weeks later. Nevertheless he had to double check so he rang the hospitals that advertised coma recovery beds. He knew they were never going to give out patient information but he told them he was searching for a friend and if they could pass his details on to anyone in their patient records who could help him he’d be eternally grateful. 

Three days later he had a phone call. An older woman’s voice said “Is that Jug-head Jones?” in a tone of such disdain that he felt his blood run ice cold. “My name is Alice Smith. You’ve been enquiring about my daughter Betty.”

He scrambled upright from where he’d been laying on the couch. “Ms Smith, thanks so much for getting back to me. Yes, I’ve been looking for an old college buddy Betty Cooper and I heard she might have been in an accident recently. I’m not sure that your daughter is my friend Betty. If I describe her…?”

“Go ahead.”

“My Betty is about five feet six inches tall, blonde, slim, very attractive, green eyes. She’s 28 or 29.”

“Yes, that certainly sounds like Elizabeth. She’s 28.”

“Wow, that’s great. Can you tell me how I can reach her? Or could you pass my number onto her?”

“Well, that won’t help you. Betty’s been in a coma for almost eleven months. I’m afraid she’s unlikely to regain consciousness. I’m actually at the hospital now.”

“There’s been no change since she was hurt?” Jug couldn’t work out what any of this meant.

“In July we thought maybe she’d wake up. Her brain waves altered, there was some lifting of the coma but then she just relapsed again. We don’t know what damage the swelling did to her brain. She was trapped under the cab for two hours. In the snow.”

He could hear the sound of Ms Smith’s shoes clacking on the hospital corridor and a door opening and then he could hear Kelly Clarkson singing that she was already gone and he was back in that kitchen on Bear Island listening to his girl singing her way through her childhood. 

“Do you play her music a lot?”

“Always in the evenings when I’m here. She has her meds at about five thirty and that seems to unsettle her so then I’ll play one of the CDs she left behind when she went off to college. I don’t know what she liked when you were friends. I expect her music is all on her phone and that got broken in the accident. They say to let her hear something that reminds her of who she is. I’m beginning to wonder who she might be now even if she ever woke up.”

He didn’t understand how the girl he fell in love with in Massachusetts could also have been in hospital on East 17th Street but he couldn’t fight the feeling that she was. “May I come and see her Ms Smith?”

“Yes, it makes no difference to her. You can come and talk to her if you like. Can’t hurt.” She sounded hopeless and defeated and he felt sorry for her.

The next day he found himself sitting by the hospital bed of the only woman he‘d ever loved, holding her hand, for the first time and for the thousandth time. Was this the hand he’d held or was that hand somehow a figment of his imagination? He couldn’t figure it out so he stopped trying. It was a terrible dark miracle. He had lost her, found her and at the same time he’d never had her. But it was her, though her skin was paler, her hair longer and loose around her face. He wanted the vibrant, living girl who had loved him back to himself last spring and what he was being given was a statue of her to mock his loss. “Darling girl. It’s me. It’s Jug. I found you.” He hated the story of Sleeping Beauty but he couldn’t help the impulse to wake her with a kiss. He leaned over and kissed her forehead, waiting for her mother to object. She didn’t. And, of course, the princess didn’t wake up.

He came every day. Sometimes he’d see Alice and one of them would go on the coffee run while the other sat with Betty. Other times he’d come at lunchtime instead to let the mother and daughter have some privacy. Then he’d whisper how he loved her, how he remembered her mouth on him, how he longed for her. He’d tell her about the book, about a film deal in the works, about a lot of money. He told her he’d put in an offer on the Bear Island house, how she just needed to get well and they could go home. 

The day that the purchase of the house was completed he was stuck at the lawyer’s office until late and he had to rush to get to the hospital before the end of visiting hours. Alice was dozing in a chair so he sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s ours Betts. I bought it today. It’s in both our names. Come on Betts. Wake up, let’s go home.” He leaned in and kissed her, dragging her bottom lip between his teeth in a way that used to make her moan against him. He felt something against his cheek and started backwards only to realise it was her eyelashes. She was staring at him with those big green eyes. Had he just sexually assaulted a coma patient?

“Vadgeweasel,” she said and Alice’s eyes startled open.

Alice sobbed. “She’s brain damaged. Oh God.”

Jug grinned like a maniac. “No, she’s fine. It’s a pet name. Hi baby.”

“Hi Juggie. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

———————————————————  
They lay together in their bed, listening to the waves lapping the shore. Jug was still trying to catch his breath and she was curled into his chest, placing soft kisses wherever she could reach. 

“So, Harvard then?” He murmured into her hair.

“Yep. You can call me prof, fuckwalrus.”

“OK Professor Fuckwalrus. Hey do we need to buy a goddamn boat? Like we’re one percenters?”

“Oh my poor sweet Bernie loving Jug, we are one percenters. You’re the Hollywood liberal elite with your movie credits and your Oscar nom. I’m the intellectual elite, I have tenure at Harvard, baby. But we can give away as much as we keep and pay our taxes and not be dicks about it.”

“I hate it. Stop making me functional and successful and rich and extremely well fucked. How can I be the tortured artist under these conditions? You’re unstoppable Cooper. You want to go on holiday and the mere fact of being comatose doesn’t stop you. You’re all, ok, slight hitch, but I’ll just go anyway. Christ you’re amazing.”

“I don’t think that’s what happened Juggie. I think I needed you and you needed me and this place put us together. Maybe there’s something here that powers that. There are all kinds of stories about the island you know. Strange sightings, impossible meetings, ghosts and premonitions. That’s why I was coming here. A little parapsychology on the side.”

“Well you can research it to your heart’s content now.”

“I’d rather research you Jones,” she whispered, reaching down to stroke him.

“Again? Oh my god, now you’re corporeal you’re insatiable. I love it.”


End file.
